Weapon Balance, where art thou?

Before I go full rant, I'll make it clear that I have indeed brought all Common, almost all Uncommon weapons to Rank X, and several Rare and UR weapons to serviceable rankings. Almost all my gameplay has shifted to Gold Runs, which I will be using to make my points/assumptions/conclusions

Now that that is out of the way, I'd like to ask: what happened?  &  How do you all feel? The Same? If not, am I crazy?_{probably so}

Many folks, regardless of class (including myself), fall upon the Vanquisher as the premiere effective weapon in MP; with good reason: the vast majority of weapons are just. plain. awful.
Is it just bad balance?
Did they just give us basic versions of the SP weapons which are balanced to be boosted by Ryder's MANY passive skills which improve gunplay; and then forget MP characters do not have those options?
We may never know. _{Hopefully someone at bioware is looking through these posts.}

Assault Rifles - they feel like peashooters with zero accuracy beyond 20-meters, regardless of that you can empty entire thermal clips into basic enemies and come out with just barely draining shields. If you have Turbocharge ready? Congrats, you can kill 2-3 mooks.  I loosely remember some thread listing the differences in damage numbers from the current weapons to their ME3 counterparts. We're pretty much seeing -50+% damage number decreases alongside some incomprehensible RoF changes.

• Sure, the Falcon can still be OK if used right.
  
• The PAW can barely kill a simple goon before overheating, or strip shields.
• Did the Mattock really need that disgusting new RoF when it's weaker than most pistols?

In simpler tl;dr terms, AR's feel bad.

Pistols, for the most part feel weak, but also contain some of only gems in the MEA armory. Sadly the ones who are know to do a decent chunk of damage are gated by slightly reduced output and a largely abysmal RoF that take 4-steps back from their ME3MP counterparts (Carnifex, i'm looking at you, buddy).

• Hurricane/Equalizer are relatively up to snuff, large capacity + decent RoF make them reliable. (Sure, a Charger X can substitute)
  
• The big ALPHA STRIKE pistols genuinely don't afford much damage output, again, slow RoF, or in that Angaran pistol's case, it's a 1-2 shot affair. Enjoy reloading 2 times before your headshots kill a single Chosen.
  
• Then you have your Sidewinders, your Phalanxes, etc. the basic pistols; While weaker than the big boy pistols, frankly feel better. BUT, ONLY since you're able to unload more shots in the same span of 2 Carnifex shots.
  

tl;dr, better boat than AR's, but lots of problems nonetheless

Shotguns, oh what a conundrum. It's so, so, so hard to put my finger on it, but they just don't feel all too right. In one aspect, they can feel like you're shooting a marshmallow cannon, on the other, they can utterly obliterate. Netcode? Bad Luck? Hopefully not skill? A fully choked Disciple X dead center on a Gold enemy's forehead shaves off about 25% of the healthbar @ 5 meters one day, instakills an Anointed the next. Most pellet-based shotguns feel VERY VERY inconsistent with prolonged use.
        YES, the Piranha is in fact an exception to that statement. It's volume trumping effectiveness.
        The Crusader and Reegar are also clearly exceptions. Crusader feels a smidge weaker than it's ME3 ancestor, but I find it serviceable _{(probably due to favoritism-bias, i love that gun).}         And the Reegar is just effective for what it is, albeit a little wonky.
tl;dr 3 cool guns a good weapon class they do not make.


Sniper Rifles, what can I say? Vanquisher. no really, Vanquisher. Did I mention, Vanquisher?
Yes, Widow, Black Widow, Isharay, we still love you. But I'll come and say this, that gun is STRONG. Mayhaps too strong? But it's sadly the ONLY really dependable high-end weapon in ME:AMP right now that lets you put down henchmen if you can headshot consistently and quickly. The Vanquisher and hell, even the Raptor and Indra, have these bizarre perfect balances of 1. Damage + 2. RoF + 3. Accuracy + 4. Reload time. While the big bad Widow & Isharay have these heavenly BOOOOM spikes, they can't really be relied on during a Gold OBJ wave when your squad is pinned trying to defuse a device in the same way the Vanquisher can.

tl;dr, SR's have the #1 Gary Stu gun in the current Meta. A Rapid-firing 4-5 shots of 500-900+ dmg (depending on class) = The Golden Gun circa Goldeneye 64. Other snipers are cool too.


Look, I fully expect a knee-jerk nerf to the good ol' Vanny-Q, but seriously, BIOWARE, ESTABLISH A MEDIAN DPS RATE WITH YOUR WEAPONS.  _{The^{y fee}l inconsiste^nt} (See what I did there? that's really how them weapons feel.)
Kett Weapons largely feel awful. Burst-Fire & Charge-fire Plasma Guns would be cool if they actually put out damage to match the unorthodox firing modes.
Angarans have the Isharay, kudos. That pistol is awful.
Remnant, PAW & Sweeper make me feel like a 40k Guardsman. I didn't think APEX would let me into combat with a flashlight.